Sandy lets town off easy

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While the Eastern seaboard of the United States felt the brunt of Hurricane Sandy Monday night, Halton Hills escaped the storm relatively unscathed.

Halton Hills Hydro reports there were a few short-term power outages, and while there were some downed trees, it appears the town dodged most of the storm’s fury.

Halton Hills Hydro President and CEO Art Skidmore said most of the outages were caused by tree limbs on the hydro lines during the height of the storm between midnight and 2 a.m. Tuesday.

The biggest outage was due to equipment problems on a main feeder about 1 a.m. Tuesday. The power was out for 4,000 customers in south Georgetown and the south rural area as a result for about 50 minutes. Another 3,334 customers in Georgetown were affected for about 40 minutes at midnight when insulators were damaged from a tree limb that had come down.

“Every outage was under an hour,” said Skidmore, adding no customers were impacted after 4 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Both Halton Hills Hydro and the Town of Halton Hills Public Works Department had extra staff on Monday night.

Dick Spear, superintendent of Public Works for the Town, said about 12 large trees came down across Halton Hills in the high winds. Most of them were in the rural area, he said.

The storm took a 35-year-old tree down on Steve Mehring’s Tenth Line property about 4 p.m. Monday. The tree snapped at its base landing on the roof of the detached garage.

“I heard a couple of thumps and thought my daughter might have fallen down a couple of stairs,” said Mehring. He checked on her and she was fine, so he looked outside and saw the tree on the garage.

The tree caused four holes and a cracked rafter in the garage, Mehring said.

But it could have been worse if it fell the other way- it would have hit his home.